


How I Met Myself

by mattthedungeonbat



Series: HIMYM Critical [2]
Category: How I Met Your Mother
Genre: Ted Mosby Bashing
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-09-15
Updated: 2020-03-18
Packaged: 2020-10-19 01:02:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 2,804
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20648645
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mattthedungeonbat/pseuds/mattthedungeonbat
Summary: Barney Stinson is sick of being recognized from that autobiographical show Mosby wrote, so when a girl asks him how accurate it is, he tells her.Spoiler alert; "embellished" isn't a strong enough adjective for what Mosby did.





	1. Prologue

Hi. I’m Barney Stinson-- Maybe you’ve heard of me, I’m kind of a big deal.

You have! No, don’t play coy with me, I saw that look! 

Well then! Alright! So um, where’d you hear about me, then?

_ Ah. _ Right, no, I know of it. Ole Mosby sure caught me by surprise, I’ll give him that.

That’s the one. Ted Mosby. “Architect.” I taught him that line, you know. Yeah we were friends, once upon a time. Still don’t know what I was thinking.

Accurate? Well. A story’s gonna be different every person who tells it, isn’t it? I could tell you a whole ‘nother side to that story you’d never expect.

“Legendary?” Ha, well. I guess you could say that. Any story I’m in is legendary, wouldn’t you say?

Sorry. 

You really want to know?

...It is different. It’s…. Sorry-- Scotch, please? --It’s not like I can publicize the real version, now Mosby’s gone and written a show about his life like that.

No, no, it’s not that. He just has a way with people, you know? Always could make it seem like he was the good guy. Like it was the whole world beating down on him, no way it could be _ his _ fault. 

Look, if you’re gonna be like that, I’m just gonna leave.

…

Fine. 

Fine, I’ll tell you my side of it. But when my story is completely different from what you saw on TV, you remember that it was you who talked me into this. I wasn’t the one who tried to-- “smear” Mosby’s name. You talked me into this, so you don’t get to say I’m a liar when I’m done, alright?

Okay.

...It started like this.


	2. Chapter 2

_ It started like this... _

* * *

It was 2001 and I was at MacLaren’s. It was the usual night, stop by the bar, pick up a girl or two, bring her home, sleep with her, move on. Except that this night wasn’t so usual. You know the story of how I met Mosby, at the urinal practicing a line I’d come up with earlier. It’s always good to practice, you know-- even a brilliant actor like me needs a run through now and again. I couldn’t tell you what it was about Mosby that made me approach him again at the corner booth. It certainly wasn’t that hideous goatee. 

….Maybe…. This is gonna sound stupid, but maybe it was the eyes. Yeah, yeah, I know. “You’re the stud of the century, Barney, why would you notice a guy’s eyes?” Well, you’d only say that if you haven’t met Mosby. Again, I don’t know how he does it. Maybe it’s just a natural part of the looks, but the big brown puppy eyes are disarming. If you’re ever stupid enough to look him in the face you feel kind of fond of him without even knowing him yet.

….Stupid. I would’ve been better off if I’d never fallen for it, lemme tell ya.

Well, that’s not true. But-- Anyways.

So I met Mosby. And just like every other sucker in the guy’s life, I wanted to stick around. He didn’t make it easy on me. It was clear from the start he only barely tolerated me, and Lily and Marshall…. Well. I was some whore of a guy tagging along with their best friend; they put up with it for his sake. Honestly, if I hadn’t been so drunk and desperate all the time, I might have left him sooner. Hindsight’s twenty/twenty, and all that.

And it was fine. For the first time since I’d moved away, I felt like I really belonged somewhere, you know? Yeah, they ignored me a lot and didn’t like it when I talked, but I had people I hung out with  _ regularly _ who  _ let _ me! That had never really happened to me before.

Pathetic, I know. But you’ve seen Mosby’s stupid show, it’s not like you could get an even  _ lower _ opinion of me. So yeah, thirty-one, successful, handsome, and completely friendless until puppy-eyed Mosby happened to cross my path. 

And I got used to it. Looking back… Well, I  _ would  _ say I don’t know why I put up with it, but I absolutely do. It gets lonely when the only person who seems to like you is your brother, you know? I thought I was lucky, I’d finally caught a big break, finally someone saw how amazing I was and got to bask in the awesomeness of my presence! Finally my life wasn’t just about suits and sex and money, it was about Mosby too. I guess I sort of deluded myself into believing I had found some kind of family.

But the beginning of old Mosby’s story is the beginning of the end of mine. Now mind you, his show is  _ heavily _ fictionalized. It’s all hunky-dory to watch it absentmindedly, texting with one hand and eating popcorn with the other, but have you ever actually  _ watched  _ it? Really sat down and paid attention? Because if you did you’d notice a whole lot of inconsistencies.

When Mosby called me up in 2005, I was ecstatic. I’m a man of simple joys, me; the creature comforts are what really bake my biscuit. And one such creature comfort is companionship. ...No, I mean-- look, okay? Anyways. He-- I liked hanging out with Mosby. Even when the whole goal of the night was to get laid, I was doing it  _ with  _ someone, you know? --No-- Come on. 

...You know what I mean, do you want to hear this story or not?

...Okay. Good.

Where was I… Right.  _ With  _ someone. Just simply spending time together is underrated, you know? Even if the goal wasn’t  _ just _ to hang out, I was doing something I enjoyed, and someone I liked was doing it with me! That’s a real kind of intimacy I don’t think enough people appreciate. ..Don’t give me that look. I told you you don’t know the whole story.

So I was out with Mosby. And you know, back then I considered myself a part of the group, yet there we are at the bar and Mosby goes, “It’s always been Lily and Marshall and me,” --as if  _ I  _ didn’t exist. As if I hadn’t been part of the group for four years. “--And soon it’s gonna be Lily and Marshall….. And  _ me. _ ” “ _ Me, _ all alone in a corner, nursing my beer,” because obviously  _ I _ don’t exist!

Sorry, I get…. I still can’t… anyways.

So I set Mosby up with Carl’s girlfriend-- of course I knew, I wasn’t trying to get him laid. He needed someone to listen to him, so I found someone --and prowled for a bit. Of course apparently a girl needs to listen with her pants off or it’s not good enough, so twenty minutes later there we were again, Mosby whining about his lot in life at the bar.

I cannot tell you how ironic it is that Mosby turned around and decided that God had planted Robin in his path. There were dozens of other girls at MacLaren’s that night, dozens within his line of sight no less, and he somehow zeroes in on Robin. I’m not saying it wasn’t a good choice-- Scherbatsky is a fantastic woman and I love her to pieces. But any woman could have been standing where she was when he turned around. 

Now I’m gonna warn you-- this is where the story really starts to diverge. 

So Robin was there with her friends Annalise, Sheryl, Cassie and Monique. What, are you shocked they have names? Robin did actually have friends outside of our little posse for quite a while. She saw them less and less as time went on and her life began to revolve around Mosby, but she did have them. Poor Sheryl had just been dumped-- and no way was I hitting that, by the way, those girls were not in the mood to be hit on that night. It would have been red wine right to the face and my ties are one hundred percent silk, baby. I wouldn’t even have hit on Scherbatsky that night, honestly, but when Mosby has his heart set on a complete stranger there’s no deterring the creep!

So Mosby got her number. And blew me off in the process-- obviously, bros before ho’s only applied to Marshall. I didn’t know Robin back then, so I was actually a little…. Shall we say, chagrined, that I’d misjudged her receptiveness. It did help that Mosby was dripping, though. But the next night Mosby came crawling back like the idiot he is, unable to seize the moment because there weren’t enough rose petals, boo hoo. Seemed like Scherbatsky had made her escape, and while I would have liked to tap that, the fact that  _ Mosby _ hadn’t gotten to either soothed my little heart.

...And then off he went, determined not to let his cowardice run the show. A suit and a bit of petty larceny later-- by the way, have you ever noticed how he only condemns  _ other  _ people stealing, but when he does it it’s fine?-- he’s knock-knock-knockin’ on Robin’s door. Now, Robin told me later what went down up there, and I have to say,  _ dang,  _ Scherbatsky! That girl has moves. How _ ever, _ I can’t say the same for Mosby. Have you ever really thought about  _ why _ it’s so creepy for a man to say “I love you” to a woman he’s known about a night and a half? Really, think about it. It’s not really that he said it “too soon.” No, if Robin had felt the same way, it would have been a fine thing to say. I wouldn’t have supported it one bit, but at least Robin would have been on board, you know? But no, Mosby goes and whips out this “I love you” when Robin was clearly down for bone town and nothing else. I honestly challenge you to watch that first episode without the lense of “this is romantic and Mosby’s gonna marry her.” All we ever see is Robin DTF and Mosby being entitled. 

Because that’s what it is! He writes it in that first episode, he sees a complete stranger and decides on a whim that he loves her, even though he doesn’t know her from Eve, and that he’s going to marry her. No thought to what her career path might be, no consideration for her own feelings on the subject. It’s entitlement pure and simple--

\--What. Oh, you think it’s rich for a guy like me to be going on about a woman’s feelings, is that it? That’s three times now you’ve decided that you’d rather laugh at me than listen to the story  _ you  _ asked me to tell. I’m done.

No, you had plenty of chances. Goodbye.


	3. Chapter 3

_ No, you had plenty of chances. Goodbye. _

* * *

Oh, God.

Let go-- Would you get off me? No, I’m leaving, I’ll find another bar to hide in.

Oh you’re sorry, uh huh. I _ totally _ believe you. One _ hundred _ percent.

No! God, you made it pretty damn clear you can’t take anything I say seriously. Is it so hard to believe you really don’t know the whole story?

Ha, I see. So that’s how it’s gonna be, is it? You’re gonna mock me to my face and then go home and decide I really was telling the truth, after all?

Yeah, I think it is like that! God, I’m sick and tired of people thinking they know me! _ Get off. _

...

...Christ.

Stalking me now, are you? So what, are you just gonna keep following me until I tell you more of the story? You realize I could lead you some truly awful places?

…

I don’t get why you care so much. You seemed perfectly content to subscribe to Mosby’s version back in the bar. 

Uh huh. 

….Don’t know why I bother… So are you going to interrupt me again, or will you actually listen? Because I’m at the end of my rope, I have _ had _ it with people ignoring what I say to focus on what they think they already know.

“Does it happen often?” What do _ you _ think? Mosby and his stupid _ fucking _show….

...

...This is your last chance. Interrupt me one more time and I promise you’ll never see me again.

…

...Okay.

God. Okay, where was I...


	4. Chapter 4

_ God. Okay, where was I...  
_

* * *

So right, it had been about a week. Um, for a second there, it actually seemed like Mosby was capable of being self aware. It happened every now and then, I guess. He’d have a brief second of rationality before the rose tinted goggles popped back on. But when he saw Robin again he was back “in love,” completely ignoring the fact that he was in love with the concept of getting married, and not with Robin herself. 

It honestly turned my stomach a little, hearing the way he talked about tricking her into loving him. Mosby’s show makes me out to be some kind of… I don’t know… But it really played up my methods. I’m not saying I haven’t lied to women in the past, but that show makes it seem like I _ never _ take women home just because we both wanted to have sex. Maybe that’s just Mosby’s bias showing through; he never did understand that women have libidos too-- despite _ living _ with Aldrin for years-- so the idea that a woman might want to sleep with me of her own volition was too far fetched or something.

Mosby did want sex, but he also wanted _ Robin, _ as if she was some kind of object that could be won or bought and _ kept _ forever after. As if she has no agency of her own, no wants or needs or goals in life. Hell, Lily _ told _ him what Robin wanted from life and Mosby’s first response was essentially, “I don’t care, I’ll make her want what I want instead!”

I should have smacked him more than once. Honestly, stalking a girl just to trick her into loving you? Yeah, not creepy at all, Mosby! Lily even _ said _ the word “stalker” and Mosby gets this look on his face like he’s just been complimented! I--!

Ugh. So Mosby hatched his stalker plan and I hatched one of my own. Because it wasn’t that he was _ in love _ with Robin, it was that he’d convinced himself she was the one for him. All I had to do was point him in the direction of another fine young thang and he’d spend a minute longer with her than he had with Robin and have a “revelation” and there we go, problem solved. 

Eeeexcept it wasn’t because Robin didn’t show up the first night, so instead of mingling like he might have if she was there, Mosby spent the whole night waiting for her! And then-- get this-- he throws _ another _ party just to see her. And _ another. _ And it backfired! Of course it did, it’s not like something like that could go well. 

And so here we have Mosby on the roof with Robin, his plan in shambles, and-- Robin told me, what she said-- And I’m shocked Mosby didn’t even change it! I cannot think of a clearer way for Robin to have said “I’m aromantic, let’s be friends” without actually using the word “aromantic.” She even said the “let’s be friends” part straight out and Mosby still didn’t get it! Now, to his credit, he did rewrite the outcome of the _ rest _ of the evening. Robin didn’t hang out with us for a couple of weeks, at least-- and when she did she eased into it more. She and Lily would have beers, or she’d invite Lily to hang out with her own friend group. I almost wish she hadn’t joined Mosby’s posse at all, even if that means I never would have gotten to know her…

Hm? Oh, yeah, you’re straight, aren’t you? Well, you know the different sexualities, right? Hetero, homo, et cetera? Yeah, same thing for romance. Sometimes people are down to bone but not down to date-- that’d be aromantic. 

Me? I… ah, that’s another story.

…

...You didn’t interrupt me.

…

...Hm. Well-- no, you didn’t make a good first impression. But…

You gonna follow me around all night, then? Ha-- No, it’s alright. Here, go home.

Hooked now, are you? You know normally I’d leap at the chance to get a girl’s number, but… I, yeah, that’s about right. Easier to sleep with girls who don’t think I’m the devil. 

I actually don’t like talking about it. I know-- me, not liking talking? But it’s… it still hurts. Look, if you want the story bad enough I have no doubt you’ll find me. You seem smart enough. The meter’s running-- go home. 

...

...See you around.


End file.
